


Because You Have To

by rookandpawn



Series: Because You Have to [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-09-28 00:29:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20416865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rookandpawn/pseuds/rookandpawn
Summary: “Scott,” she whispers when they’re alone.“I know,” he says with a sigh, all his bravado gone. “Something’s wrong.”





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Walkinrobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walkinrobe/gifts).

> I couldn't get this one out of my head, so here's another one shot (well two shot) when I really should be writing the next chapter of The Me Without You.
> 
> As always, thank you to Walkinrobe, who is the best proofreader, counselor and bestie a girl could ask for.
> 
> There's some serious medical stuff that happens to one of the characters, so if that's triggering for you, you might want to skip it.

She knows something is wrong when he starts admitting he’s tired. Scott has more energy than anyone she’s ever met. So much, that he’s usually taking laps around the rink to burn off energy when everyone else wants to fall down from exhaustion. She supposes that most men just out of their teens, have too much energy, but he's always been like this. She would know, he’s known him for most of her life.

They’re almost at the end of their season, their magical season, when everything they ever wanted starts to seem possible and so, so close. It’s as near to perfect as she could imagine, the perfect music, the perfect costume, the perfect love story. On the ice anyway, off ice it’s a different kind of love story. He’s her best friend and when no one is listening he’ll admit she’s his.

They win Four Continents. They win Four Continents when they’re not supposed to. It’s perfect, except she notices the dark circles under his eyes and the fact that he’s not taking extra laps. When she asks, he shrugs it off. Blames it on the altitude.

They’re a miraculous second at Worlds and she doesn’t think she’s ever been happier in her life. And he seems to be his old self, full of energy and jokes. He hugs her as if his if depends on it when they win, dances the night away with her after. But he sleeps for twelve hours the next day, turns it on for the exhibition skate, but falls into bed and sleeps until it’s time to leave after.

She thinks the break will make him better, that he just needs rest, but when he shows up for the first day of practice he looks even worse. Twenty pounds lighter, pale and listless and with black circles that can’t be hidden with make up.

“Scott,” she whispers when they’re alone.

“I know,” he says with a sigh, all his bravado gone. “Something’s wrong.”

He doesn’t want anyone to know, so they tell Marina there’s a family emergency, drive across the border and visit a doctor in Sarnia. She holds his hand in the waiting room, it’s the first time she’s ever held his hand not for skating, and she’s surprised to find that it isn’t the life changing moment she feared.

The doctor, who Tessa found online and chose because he vaguely resembles Santa Claus, takes one look at Scott and checks him into the hospital. She holds his hand while they drive there, while they check him in and while he argues that he really is twenty-one and not seventeen. He’s always looked younger than his age, but it’s even worse now.

She holds his hand through all the tests when she can be by his side, and after when she can’t. In the pit of her stomach, she knows that something truly horrible is wrong, because he never once makes a joke and there’s never been an awkward situation that he couldn’t make a joke through.

Instead, he looks at her through tired and defeated eyes and holds her hand a little tighter.

She tries to convince him to call his mother, one of his brothers, anyone when they finally have a diagnosis but he refuses. 

So she holds his hand while they tell him that he has bone cancer.

That the tumour has grown so entwined with working parks of his leg, that amputation is his only option.

That they’d like to schedule surgery as soon as possible so he can make a full recovery.

He’s stoic as they deliver the news.

She’s not.

He’s stoic when he phones his mother to tell her the diagnosis. She sobs along with Alma.

He’s stoic when they explain exactly what the procedure will look like, how long his recovery will be and what his prosthetic will be like.

He finally breaks down when he apologizes to her for never being able to skate again.

His family arrives in time for the surgery and his mother takes over the role Tessa’s been playing. She doesn’t have to hold his hand anymore, but he won’t let go. So she keeps holding on until she’s not allowed to anymore.

She makes sure she’s holding his hand when he wakes up. She’s not supposed to be there, family only, but the Moirs convince the hospital staff she’s related and even though everyone knows it’s a lie, they let her stay.

They let her stay for fourteen days of hospital stay, when the infection happens and his fever spikes. There’s talk of more surgery and Alma and Joe whispering their worries, which she tries not to overhear.

She sneaks back into his room at night to hold his hand while he’s sleeping. Except he’s awake, as semi coherent for the first time in awhile.

“You should be sleeping,” he says when he realizes she’s there, as if her sleep habits were the thing people needed to worry about.

“You know me,” she answers with a shrug, rests her chin on his hand. The one without the IV. “Always restless.”

“Me too,” He gives her a weak smile. Tries to laugh.

“I’ve been doing some thinking.”

“Always dangerous.” His voice is different, hoarse from when the tube was down his throat.

“I’m going to need you to get better, because I can handle losing my dance partner, but I really can’t handle losing my best friend.”

“Jordan is sick too?” he jokes. She thinks that’s a good sign, that he’s joking again.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“I am to you.”

“Ok, you are funny.” 

He looks particularly pleased at this admission, brightens for a minute. 

“I’m going to need someone to hang out with and make me laugh when we get home. I’ve been thinking about what our first outing should be…”

“Wait, what do you mean when we get home?” 

“I’ll probably have to go back to Canton and pack up our stuff…”

“We are not going home,” he cuts her off and for the first time she sees something in his eyes other than defeat. “You’re going back to Canton and finding another partner.” “I can’t skate without you.”

“Well, you certainly can’t skate with me.” He gestures to his leg. She thinks it might be the first time he’s ever acknowledged it.  
“We always said that we’d never skate with someone else.”

“That’s just something that kids say to each other,” he insists, but they both know they meant it when they said it. “I can’t handle it if this ruins your life too.”

“Your life isn’t ruined.” Just changed. Different, but she knows it can be just as amazing.

“It will be if you quit skating.”

“Scott…”

“T, I’m serious.” He grips her hand the hardest he has since the whole mess started. Harder than he did when they uttered the word cancer. Harder than when they said amputation.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she says through her tears.

“You kick this infection and go home and get better, and I’ll go back to skating.”

“Deal,” he says and seals the agreement with a handshake. “Come here.”

It takes him a great deal of effort and he refuses her help, but he moves over, so she can lay down beside him. 

“I love you,” he says and presses a chaste kiss to her lips. They’ve never kissed before. She doesn’t know what to think about it, so she doesn’t.

“I love you too.”

“Now go to sleep. I need rest if I’m going to get better.”

She rests her head on his chest and listens to him breathe.

He gets better. Of course he does, because no one can focus on a goal the way that Scott Moir can. Within two days the infection is gone, and he’s almost ready to go home. She’s not sure if it’s the antibiotics or sheer force of will.

“I need you to do two things for me,” he says when they’re alone. It’s a rare occurrence. Between the plethora of Moirs and the hospital staff, there’s always someone in his room.

“Does one of these things involve porn?” she asks. He looks so much better. There’s pink in his cheeks again.

“Why is that always where your mind goes?” He laughs. A real laugh, and that more than anything makes her think he really is getting better. “Neither of them are porn.”

She just shrugs and gives him a look. 

“But you might not want to do either of them.”

She gives him another look. He should know by now that she’d do anything for him.

“I haven’t looked at it yet,” he takes a deep breath and clenches his fists. “My… stump. I haven’t looked at it yet. Could you… with me.”

“Of course.” She’s actually terrified to look, but if he can go through it, she can have enough courage to look.

He peels back the covers and she relieved to find that he’s wearing pajama pants. One covering his whole good leg, the other full until his knee where the pajamas lay flat against the bed. He takes a deep breath and starts to pull up his pant leg. It gets caught so she helps him. They both stare at his leg for a moment. It’s not nearly as bad as she feared. Neatly covered in a dressing there’s no gore to behold.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” he says slowly, an odd, detached look in his face. 

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“It doesn’t seem real.” He reaches for her hand. “Like I’m looking at someone else. It still feels like my leg is there.”

Suddenly, his face changes. Like he’s hit by reality.

“It’s not though,” A choked desperate sound comes out of him, and he’s sobbing. It’s the first time he’s cried and all of it seems to hit at once.

She takes him in her arms, whispers nonsense in his ears, holds him until the tears stop.

She forgets to ask him what the second thing is.

She hated Canton when Scott was there to make it bearable. Now it’s hell. The sympathetic stares, the victorious glares, the people who ignore her, who don’t think she’s worth anything now that he’s gone. 

“Male partners are harder to find that female ones.” Marina says as if she has a lemon in her mouth.

“I’ll take a female one, if you think that will work,” she tries humour. It always worked for Scott.

“But you are in demand after the silver at Worlds. So we have options.” Marina ignores her humour. But her face softens a little. 

“They will not be Scott.”

“I know.”

“But do you?’ Marina pats her hand twice and walks away.

None of them are Scott. None of them skate like him, smile like him, joke like him. Most importantly, none of them understand her like him.

Marina seems to be on the same page.

“He’s too tall,” she says of a boy named Andrew. “And he breathes through his mouth.”

“Why is his hair like that?” she sniffs at Evan.

“He skates like he doesn’t know where his feet are.” Is her answer to Zach.

Tessa doesn’t have to say no because Marina does it for her. 

Eventually, she has to say yes. If she doesn’t she worries that Scott will get sick again. She has to keep up her end of the bargain.

“This is Benjamin. He is not awful,” Marina explains. 

“My friends call me Ben.”

Ben is tall but not as tall as Andrew, and doesn’t breathe through his mouth. His hair appears to be totally normal, almost luxurious in appearance and after skating with him he also seems to know where feet are. Not like Scott does, but then again, no one can do that.

Most important he doesn’t appear to be intimidated by Marina’s glares.

“He’s our best option,” she says after Ben leaves.

“He’s our only option,” Tessa clarifies. There are no more tryouts scheduled. No more potential partners. She can wait another year and see if any couples break up, or search outside the country, but there’s no guarantees. 

“I don’t like his temper.” Marina answers. Shakes her head, when Tessa tries to speak. “I see things that you don’t.”

She doesn’t know how to answer that. Marina isn’t wrong.

“Still, I suppose you could handle Scott’s temper, you can handle this one.”

What no one has ever understood is that she could handle Scott’s temper because it was never directed at her. Only at circumstances and himself. Mostly, himself. 

She doesn’t say any of that out loud. She just nods and by the end of the day Ben Montgomery is her new partner.

Her old partner isn’t answering her texts or her phone calls. She’s taken to calling his mother for updates. Alma sounds so tired and tense, but she assures her that Scott’s fine.

She finally has to threaten to come for a visit. She can’t really. Now that Ben is her partner they need all the training time they can get. It’s like being back at the beginning. Everything that was once so effortless requires too much effort. She misses Scott so much, it’s like a part of her is missing. Sometimes she thinks they amputated more than just his leg in that operation.

She texts him the threat in the middle of the night when she’s feeling especially lonely.

Tessa: I’m coming to visit. Then you can’t ignore me.

He answers her threatened visit text almost immediately.

Scott: The second thing was time. Please just give me time.

She throws her phone across the room. She could never say no to him. 

Ben is charming and everyone at the rink thinks he’s adorable and sweet. Tessa’s not so sure.

“You have a really unique nose,” he says one day when they’re waiting to take the ice.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” he says with a shrug. “It’s just unique.”

She can’t stop thinking about her nose after that.

They’re finally starting to find something like a rhythm with each other when all the other teams are getting ready to head to Worlds. All she can think about is how happy she was a year ago. How infinite the possibilities were for her and Scott. He was sick then and she didn’t even notice. 

It’s been four months since she’s seen him. Two since she threatened to come visit him, and she’s heard nothing about him. She even stopped phoning Alma. It was too hard to listened to her pained voice on the other end of the line.  
She only went home for Christmas for a few days. Drove past his house, and tried to catch a glimpse of him. Felt like a stalker and went home again.

“You need to drop five pounds,” Igor informs her. He's been harping on those five pounds for years. If she lost them, he’d find another five pounds for her to lose. “You make it too hard for him to lift you.”

She waits for Scott’s answer. 

“It’s my job to lift her, she doesn’t need to lose weight. I’ll just get stronger.” And then he’d wink at her.

But Scott’s not there and Ben just nods in agreement.

On the night of the 2009 World’s free dance she locks herself in her room and refuses to turn on the TV. It hurts not to be there.  
Sometime around when the final group is scheduled to take the ice, her phone buzzes.

She almost ignores it, but something makes her walk across the room and pick up her phone.

When she sees his name, she thinks she’s hallucinating, has to read it three times before she believes it. Her hands are shaking as she opens the message.

Scott: I wish we were there, kiddo, but even more I wish I was watching you there.

Scott: Thank you for giving me time. This has all been so much harder than I thought. I’ve been so angry and terrible and I didn’t want you to see me like that. I didn't want anyone to see me like that. Remind me that I owe my mom about 400 apologies.

She’s trying to formulate her answer when the next message comes in.

Scott: I’m starting to feel a little more like myself again, or at least the new version of me (do you like my fancy therapy talk), and I was wondering if you were still interested in coming to visit? 

She’s barely entered the y in her yes when his next message comes through.

Scott: I have a fancy new bionic leg to show off, if I’m not enough of an incentive.

Scott: It’s not actually bionic.

Tessa: How does next weekend sound?

Alma gives her the biggest and tightest hug she’s ever received. She only stops when Scott limps to the front door, and then she pulls both of them into a hug.

“Ma,” Scott whines and she finally lets them go.

“I’ll be in the kitchen, “ Alma says through tears and disappears.

They stare at each other for a few minutes, it’s almost uncomfortable, until the both giggle at the same time and he pulls her into a hug. He still feels too thin, but more solid than he has in a long time.

They make their way to the living room and he awkwardly lowers himself onto the couch.

“Still working on balance,” he says with a grin. His joke seems genuine, much the same way he used to joke when he’d fall at practice. “Tess…”

She knows what he’s going to ask. She’s always know what he’s about to say.

“My nose?” she touches it when she says it.

“It’s different.”

“I figured I might as well get it done while I have time off,” she tries to play it casual, it’s the first decision she’s made that she didn’t consult him on in a very long time. She can’t quite read his expression. That’s never happened before either. “It looks great, right.”

“Sure,” he nods and smiles but there’s a crease between his nose and she knows what that means. “There was nothing wrong with your old nose.”

“Ben likes it,” she spits back and has no idea why. Ben hasn’t said anything about her nose. He never says much of anything of value.

“Well, that’s good. How’s that going?” he clears his throat. “The skating?”

“We don’t have to talk about it. If it makes you uncomfortable,” she says as if everything about this conversation isn’t the definition of uncomfortable.

“I want to know about you,” he takes her hand. That makes everything a little easier. “And skating is a big part of you.”

She lets out the breath she feels like she’s been holding since she arrived.

“It’s…I don’t know…It’s hard.”

“Maybe that’s just our lives right now. A little hard,” he answers, weirdly zen.

“That therapy is really working out for you,” she answers, her voice dripping in sarcasm. He stares at her for a moment and then explodes in laughter. He might be the only person who finds her funny. His laugh is like coming home and she gives in and giggles too. They laugh so long and so loud that Alma comes out of the kitchen. When she sees them collapsed against each other, giggling, she just turns around and goes back to the kitchen, but this time with a smile on her face

“I guess I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life,” he says later that night. They’re lying on the double bed in his room cuddling. This is very new, something they never did before the operation. She wants to know what it all means, but she’s afraid to ask. To ruin it.

“You could be my assistant? Follow me around and tell me how wonderful I am,” she suggests, only half kidding. More than anything she misses his everyday presence in her life.

“How does that pay?”

“Not well.” She can barely figure out how to pay Marina right now. She and Scott were just starting to make a name for themselves, even picked up a sponsor. Now she’s back to square one.

“So, we should probably work on a plan B.”

She giggles again. She hasn’t spent this much time laughing in a long time. Like this, with him, never.

“And that is?”

“All I have so far is a title. I call it Plan B. The details are hazy.”

“Let’s brainstorm.” She sits up so abruptly that she almost falls off the bed. “I’m so good at brainstorming. I don’t suppose you have a white board?”

“Ok, crazy, calm down.” He laughing again. “I don’t have a white board. Who owns a whiteboard?”

She gets up and starts to search his room for paper, “People who brainstorm a lot.”

“T, do you own a whiteboard?”

“I wish.” She finally finds an old notebook of his. It’s full of old skating notes in his terrible handwriting. She rips out the pages and jumps back on the bed.

“Maybe I was saving that?” he says with a laugh.

She ignores him and starts dividing the page up into columns.

“If you could do anything what would it be?” she asks.

“Win an Olympic gold medal in ice dance with you,” he answers flatly. “Just kidding.”

“But not really.”

“Not really.”

She reaches across the bed, crushes the notebook and the pens and hugs him for a long time.

She goes back to Canton with a smile on her face. The smile lasts until fourteen minutes into practice. She misses a twizzle and Ben yells at her. While she yells she clears her mind and tries to remember what it felt like to be with the boy back in Ilderton.

“I’ve been thinking about your charts,” he says when she answers the phone. She’s just finished crying over practice, so it’s excellent timing on his part.

“That my colour coding was a brilliant idea?”

“Sure,” the sarcasm drips from his phone to hers. “That and I think I might have an idea for what I could do.”

“Oh, that’s so exciting.” The pressures of practice seem far away.

“It might be a stupid idea. I might be too stupid to do it…”

“Wait, what? Did you just call yourself stupid.” She must not have heard him right.

“T, we both know I’m not smart, that’s you.” It’s the way he says it that upsets her, not as a joke, but as if he really believes what he’s saying. “I never even graduated from high school.”

“You didn’t graduate because you were busy being a high performance athlete not because you’re stupid.”

“You were busy being a high performance athlete and you graduated from high school,” he counters.

“Scott…” “Tess…” he copies her.

“You’re not stupid. You’re one of the smartest people I know.” She can tell he doesn’t believe her, but maybe if she says it enough.

“Let’s hope so, or Plan B isn’t going to work.”

“And what exactly is Plan B?”

“I’m thinking about becoming a nurse.”

She can see it so well in her mind that she gets lost there for a moment.

“I knew it was a stupid. Forget I said anything…”

“No. It’s perfect. You’d be so good at it.” He would be, especially with the patients at ease. 

“When I was in the hospital, the nurses really made everything bearable, and I’d like to do that for other people.”

She’s crying again, but this time it’s for a good reason. Thankfully, he can’t hear her tears through her murmured sounds of agreement.

“And I know it’s not the most masculine profession, but I figure my time as an ice dancer has made me uniquely qualified to deal with any patriarchal bullshit.”

“I think it’s the best idea you’ve ever had.”

“The best idea I ever had was picking you as my partner. But this might be the second best.” She can feel his smile and his excitement through the phone. “Ok, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I need to Google how to become a nurse and you should get some sleep. You sound tired.”

“I’m fine,” she lies.

She doesn’t take a break for the summer. They’re too far behind and the Olympics are around the corner. It’s always been her dream to compete at Vancouver and there’s an outside chance they can make the team if they just work hard enough.  
The yelling continues. He yells at her when she makes a mistake. He yells at her when he makes a mistake. Either he barely speaks to her or he yells. She can’t decide which is worse. People at the rink start avoiding him and barely making eye contact with her, but no one actually says anything because he’s a very good skater. And when you’re very good, you can get away with an awful lot.

Igor continues to nag her about her weight and so she gives up eating dinner. As she suspected when those five pounds go away, it’s still not good enough. He finds another five pounds.

The only bright spot in her life is her phone calls with Scott. 

He begs her to come home for Labour day weekend. They haven’t seen each other in months. Not since the magical weekend in March where they laid on his bed and figured out his future. Sometimes she wonders if she should have kissed him. What he would have done if she did.

He won’t take no for an answer. Threatens to drive down to Detroit and get her. And she believes him, so she agrees to go home. Ben yells at her when she tells him, she doesn’t care. Marina just nods and smiles, tells her to stay home for three days.

She decides to scrap together her pennies and fly home. To spend as much time as possible away from the rink, with her family and him. He’s waiting for her at baggage claim with a sign that says Virtue and the cheesiest smile on his face. He looks good. So, so healthy and happy. So good that she almost bursts into tears.

It’s only after their hug, a hug that goes on for so long that her suitcase is the only one left going round and round on the carousel, that she notices he's wearing shorts. His prosthetic leg is on full display for everyone to see and he’s not bothered at all. This time she actually bursts into tears.

“T…”

“There’s nothing wrong.”

He knows better of course, so he drives to the closest burger joint and then to the lake, where they eat cheeseburgers and fries and drink milk shakes in front see of his truck. 

“Tell me the truth,” he says as the watch the sunset.

And she tells him because she’s never been able to tell him no.

“He’s not very nice.”

“Igor keeps telling me to lose weight.”

“Sometimes I hate skating more than I love it and that scares me more than anything.”

She tells him as the sun slips from the sky, the crickets come out and it feels like they’re the only two people in the world.  
When she’s all talked out the come up with a plan.

1\. Don’t take anymore of Ben’s shit.  
2\. Don’t take anymore of Igor’s shit (also gain back the ten pounds she’s lost)  
3\. Remember that skating is fun.  
4\. Remember life is fun.

He can’t do much to help with the first three but he immediately puts the truck in drive and takes her to her family cottage.

They’re the only ones there and she knows that can’t be a coincidence. There’s never been a final summer weekend where there weren’t as many Virtues as possible crammed into the place.

They talk as they unload the truck and fill the fridge with groceries. They talk for so long that they’re both yawn and the sun is starting to peak through the sky. When they finally can’t keep their eyes open anymore they go to separate bedrooms, even though she wishes they were going into one together.

They lay on the dock baking in the sun the next day. Usually, they’d have gone swimming by now, but he even though he came down to the dock in just his swim trunks, he seems reluctant to get in the water.

“I don’t need to gain back the entire ten pounds this weekend,” she giggles as he hands her another strawberry dipped in chocolate. It’s her fifth one.

“I have some news.” He rolls over onto his back. His body looks different now, more muscular and broad than when he was skating. He’s suddenly starting to look like a man. She finds it really difficult to stop looking at him. Luckily, he has the same problem. Every time she's looking at him, he's looking at her.

“Tell me.” She accepts the fifth strawberry without argument.

“I got into nursing school. I start in January.”

She shrieks and throws herself on top of him. Hugs him with all she has. “I’m so proud of you. I knew you could do it.”

It’s only then that she realizes she’s fully on top of him. That almost all of her skin is touching all of his and she’s suddenly on fire. He groans and his hands find the skin on her back. Their mouths inch ever closer. They’re breathing the same air. He moves one hand slowly across her back, along her neck and across her cheek, before brushing back the hair that’s fallen across her face.  
He groans again.

“T, if we do this…”

“I know.”

“We can’t go back.”

His lips are so close, she could close the distance but she doesn’t.

“I know.”

“We don’t have the space in our lives for this.”

“I know.”

“But,”

“Someday.” they say together.

She rolls off of him and they don’t talk about it again.

“You gained weight,” are the first words out of Igor’s mouth when she returns to the rink, tanned and rested and happy. 

“For fucks sake, Tessa,” Ben yells.

“No.” she answers as calmly as her shaking hands will let her. Tries to find the feeling she left behind at the lake.

“What the hell!” Ben explodes.

“You are not allowed to yell at me anymore,” she says to Ben, a little louder this time. He opens and closes his mouth three times, and then nods. She turns to Igor. “And you are not going to weigh me anymore.”

Igor does not hold back, unleashing a string of angry Russian at her and is about to follow up in English when Marina speaks.  
“No more,” Marina barks and the whole rink stops. “You will listen to her and now we go skate.”

Both men bow their heads as the queen walks away from them. 

Tessa finds her at the end of practice.

“Why didn’t you stand up for me before today?” she asks

Marina raises on eyebrow at her and for a moment she thinks that she’s not going to answer, “Because you needed to learn how to do it for yourself.” 

She starts to walk away and then changes her mind, “Scott was a good partner for you, but he protected you so much that you never had to be a woman. Now you are ready to be a woman and a real partner.”

They nod at each other and walk away.

After she tells him to stop, Ben doesn’t yell nearly as much, and when he does, she has the courage to put him in his place. And the pieces are starting to fall into place with their partnership. They’re skating well, but she knows something is missing.

Scott calls her after every competition, even though he’s overwhelmed by schoolwork. They go over every second of the routines and he has extensive notes for her. She likes to imagine him hunched over one of his notebooks, with the reading glasses he’s taken to wearing. Unfortunately, most of his notes are for Ben, and she doesn’t think her new partner is open to critiques from her old one, no matter how accurate they are.

She knows they’re a solid third going into Nationals, but there are only two spots open for the Olympics. It’s a long shot, but she can’t give up. She wants it for her, but she also wants Scott to know she’s keeping up her end of the bargain.

She’s sitting in the stands, long after practise has ended, trying to figure out what she can do to improve their chances when Marina joins her.

“Do you know why you and Scott were so successful?”

“Because we were the best?” As always happens when she tries to make a joke around Marina, it falls flat. 

“Because the audience could feel your connection. Because when you skated everything fell away and it was just the two of you on the ice. You don’t have that with Benjamin,” she holds up her hand to stop Tessa from speaking. “I do not blame you for this, Benjamin is, how do you say it, an asshole.”

She can’t stop the laugh that burbles out of her. Covers it with a cough.

“He wants you. Do you know this?”

“No.” What a horrifying idea. She will concede that he is a very handsome man, but there’s absolutely nothing she finds attractive about him. 

“He wants you the way that any man wants a beautiful woman, this we can work with. But now you must learn how to pretend to want him.”

The look on Tessa’s face makes Marina smile.

“Imagine someone else if you have to.”

With Marina’s advice in mind, they win their last competition before Nationals.

She’s so nervous heading into Nationals she thinks she might have to go back to her old habit of throwing up before she takes the ice. Nothing she’s done in the past to hold back her nerves works. And she’s starting to get frantic when suddenly an overwhelming sense of calm overtakes her. She knows Scott’s in the building. Knows he’s there even though he told her there was no way he could come. That it was too far and too expensive and he was too busy with school.

She’s on the ice practising when she knows and immediately finds him in the stands. When their eyes meet he gives her a slow, easy smile, that tugs at her stomach, and she stops in the middle of what she’s doing to wave him down to the ice. Marina gets to him first. Thumps him on the back and hugs him like he’s her long lost son. Her actual son does not look impressed.

Tessa hugs him over the boards and then holds his hand while more and more people come to see him. Practice effectively ends because no one cares about skating anymore as soon as they know he’s there. Luckily, it was almost actually over as well. 

“I didn’t mean to be a distraction,” he whispers to her as she leaves the ice and finally takes her place beside him. “I didn’t think anyone but you would care that I was here.”

“Scott Moir, everybody loves you.” Everyone that is, but Ben, whose pout grows larger the more skaters come over Scott. Tessa ignores him. Everyone ignores him and eventually he storms off.

Word gets around and half of the skaters in the arena crowd around him. No matter how many people show up, she stays by his side and if anyone tries to get between them, he grabs her hand and pulls her back.

She can see it the moment he gets tired. He’s never really gotten his stamina back and she can tell by the way that he’s shifting, that his leg is starting to hurt from standing on the concrete for so long. He confessed to her on one of their late night phone calls that it’s the part that worries him the most about nursing, that he might not be up for the physical demands. So, she makes an excuse about meeting people for dinner and drags him away.

“Can I bunk with you for the next couple days?” he asks when they arrive at the hotel. “I used all my available cash to get here, and I didn't want to ask my parents, since they’re floating the boat on school until I can pay them back.”

“I wouldn’t want you to stay anywhere else.” She wants every second of his time she can get.

“And your roommate won’t mind?” He rests his head on her shoulder as the elevator doors close. He looks exhausted, but the ok kind of exhausted from working too hard and travelling too much. Not the I’m sick kind. She knows the difference.

“My roommate is not so secretly dating one of the pairs skaters and hasn’t been in our room once. And before you ask, no you won’t be distracting.” He’ll be just what she needs.

“Awesome, because otherwise I was going to have to sleep on Chiddy’s floor.”

Once they’re in the room, their easy going banter slips away. She's suddenly nervous again. There are so many things that she wants, she’s sick with wanting, but she knows she can’t have them. Not yet.

“Come on,” she tugs him over to the bed, and they only take the time to remove their shoes before they fall into it fully clothed.

She starts to say something over and over again. So does he, but in the end they just fall asleep in each other’s arms.

It’s easy to take Marina’s advice during the frees skate. It’s easy to pretend she’s in love with Ben, when Scott is sitting in the stands, cheering her on so loudly that she can hear him call her name. Or maybe she can always just pick out his voice from the crowd, will always know where he is without looking.

It’s her best skate, but not Ben’s by a long shot. He's been sour since Scott’s arrival and all his negative feelings go right into his skates. He misses a twizzle and almost drops her out of a lift. They end up in third place by .3 of a mark. They miss making the Olympic team by .3 of a mark.

She and Scott watch the Olympics from the couch in his parent’s basement. When Charlie and Meryl take the ice, she imagines it’s them. She’s wearing a blue dress, no white, and they skate to a piece by Mahler that she’s heard Marina listening to. They’re better than they’ve ever been. It’s as close to perfect as a program can ever be and there’s no questioning they’re the winners when they finish. They hug and he kisses her cheek and the whole world understands how special their connection really is. 

In another life it’s a reality. In this one it’s merely a dream.

Meryl and Charlie win the gold and she and Scott hold each other while they cry.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you may have noticed that my one shot is now three chapters long. I apologize.
> 
> To make up for it, this chapter has really earned it's M rating.
> 
> Thanks to Walkinrobe and Mycatcanwrite for their guidance and encouragement.

She should have known that everything would change for them at the lake, but somehow change always takes her by surprise.

She and Ben redeem themselves by coming in fifth in a depleted field at Worlds. Although they skate well, they’re only speaking when absolutely necessary and barely even then. They head straight back into training and manage to achieve civil conversations with each other, before Marina sends them away for a break in July. 

Luckily, Scott has a break from school at the same time she’s off and he’s able to join her and her family at the cottage for the July long weekend. Once the fireworks are over, her family heads home and the two of them are left alone for the first time in a long time. The tension that hung over them the last time they were there is back and even worse than before.

As they were last summer, his eyes are always on her. She can feel him watching her as she does the dishes, when she dives off the dock and swims through the water, and late at night while she reads a book while they’re curled up on the sofa.

In turn she drinks him. He spends most of his days shirtless and she has memorized his chest and abs, feels like she could draw them from memory. Finds herself lingering on the slope of his ass, the way it leads to the hard muscles of his back. Can stop think about what it would be like to run her fingers through his hair and every scenario that might lead to that outcome.

But unlike the year before, they can’t stop touching each other. Applying and reapplying sunscreen far too often. Hands on backs as they walk down to the water. Cuddles on the couch and in the lounger. Cuddles that feel more like foreplay than anything else. She wants to touch every part of him, wants to feel his hands on every part of her. By the time she crawls into bed at night, she’s weak and exhausted with wanting. Knows he feels the same way and thinks they both might combust if they don’t do something, anything to relieve the tension.

As she lays beside him at night, watching the way his face loses all of its tension while he sleeps, she thinks about sneaking away and dealing with the situation. But she resists, because all she can think about is how much better it will be if it’s his hands. Instead she snuggles in closer, and wills herself to sleep.

They wake up in the morning, tangled up in each other. Hot and needy, and so, so close. They both cling to those moments, both so hesitant to break apart. It would be so easy to cross the line, to close the distance but they never do. She has no doubt he wants her, she can feel the evidence but it needs to be a conscious decision. Until they can fully make a choice to be together, they have to make the decision not to.  
“Come swim with me?” she asks late one afternoon. It’s blistering hot and the only way to cool down is a dip in the lake.

He blinks at her a few times. She’s taken to wearing her tiniest bikini around him and sometime he’s so busy staring her can’t form words.

“Oh,” he finally manages after he swallows and drags his eyes up to her face. “I’m fine.”

“Why won’t you go swimming with me?”

“I just don’t feel like it.” His face lights up in embarrassment. She knew there was more to it.

“You haven’t felt like it, the whole time we’ve been here,” she throws back and gives him the look. Even though they haven’t been partners for awhile. The look is still all powerful and cuts through all the bullshit.

“I have to take off my prosthetic to swim.” He won’t look at her.

“So.”

“I don’t want you to see me without it,” he mumbles.

“I’ve seen you without it before. You take it off every night when we go to bed.”

“It’s dark then.”

“So”

“I just don’t want you to see me!” The temper she hasn’t seen since they were skating explodes out of him. His eyes go wide and he chokes out a couple attempts at words, before he abruptly turns away from her and stomps up to the house.

She waits out on the dock for a few minutes. There’s no point rushing into a conversation when he’s like this. Instead she puts on her cover up takes a drink of water and then slowly walks up to the house.

He’s sitting at the kitchen table, dressed and with a glass of lemonade in front of him.

“I”m sorry.” The apology is out of his mouth before she’s closed the sliding glass door. “You didn’t deserve that.”

“I don’t understand why.” She stays at the door. They need distance when they have conversations like this.

“I don’t want you to think I’m not attractive.” She starts to speak, but he cuts her off immediately. “Don’t say it wouldn’t happen because it does. Woman are super interested and then they realize I’m a one legged wonder and they’re out. I actually dared to take a woman home and as soon as she saw the stump, she ran for the hills.”

“You took a woman home?” She feels so betrayed, not that she has any right to. They’ve never made promises, never even kissed.

“Because she reminded me of you,” his voice cracks and she can tell he’s holding back tears. “She looked enough like you and I thought maybe I could get you out of my system, but she just looked so disgusted…”

She moves to him in two quick strides, drops down beside him a puts her arms around him, before he speaks again.

“I just couldn’t take it if you looked at me like that.”

“I would never look at you like that.” she presses kisses to his forehead. “All I do is want you. I can’t think about anything else.”

“But..”

“Scott Moir!” She pulls herself up and then straddles his lap, so they’re sitting face to face. He looks at her with big, shocked eyes and that does something to her that she can’t explain, makes her want him even more. “I have lived through pimply faced Scott and shave my head Scott and dye my shaved head blond Scott and arms too long for my body Scott and if I still find you attractive after those, how could you possibly think that this toned, superior man Scott would be the thing that would put me off.”

“Are you sure?” he asks her as his mouth inches closer to hers.

“I could never find anything about you unattractive.” She can him picture him old and grey and knows she will always feel this way about him.

“I don’t just mean about me,” he leans forward and brushes his lips against hers, even the brief contact is enough to send shivers through her. She didn’t think it was possible to want him more but somehow. “If we do this, it changes everything, except…”

“We can’t really be together.”

Not yet.

It’s the phrase that seems to hang in the air between them. 

Over them.

It’s there in the back of every conversation, of every moment. And the only reason they’ve stopped every time things have gotten this far.

But this time she doesn’t care, she doesn’t want to wait another moment.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asks again, even as his hands find their way into her hair, even as he begins to to touch her in a way he never has before. 

If she said stop he would in a second, and they would go back to their friendship. But she doesn’t want to stop. She wants this one good thing with him, even if it’s just this moment and never again.

“I’m sure,” she says the words on his lips, dives in and kisses him in a way it feels like she’s wanted to her entire life.

They take their time.

As if they have all the time in the world, instead of until the end of the weekend.

Lips.

She spends so much time exploring his lips. She’s thought about it for almost as long as she understood what kissing was. They’ve never really done this with each other before. A couple of accidental brushes along the way but this is the first time she really gets to taste him. She wants the sensation burned into her memory, so that when she can no longer have him, she can remember every nuance, every taste, every sigh.

Hands. 

His hands have always been strong and sure. After years of skating together, she thought she knew what kind of lover he’d be , but his hand are soft and sometimes tentative. He finds places he’s never touched before. Worships with his hands. Demands with his hands. In turn she does the same. Tries to put all of what she’s feeling into how she touches him.

Sounds.

A symphony of sounds that she hears for the first time, that she catalogues in her mind for future reference. Some from her that she’s never made before. It may not be the best sex of her life. It’s sometimes awkward in the way that the first time with someone new always is, but she thinks it might be the most important sex of her life. Knows she’ll come back to this moment for the rest of her life.

After.

They stay silent for a long time after. His body wrapped around her, his hands in her hair, her lips on his forehead. If they move, if they speak, the moment will be over. And she wants to cling to it forever or at least as long as she can.

She’s starting to doze off, when he breaks the spell.

“T…”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snuggles in tighter, he laughs and tugs her hair.

“Ok,” he agrees with a sigh. “But in the morning.”

“In the morning.” She pulls him in for a kiss. If she only has until morning, she’s not going to waste a single moment.

He’s gone when she wakes up and he leaves her a note.

A fucking note, like the coward bastard he is.

Tessa,

I know this is a shitty thing to do. I know you’ll hate me and maybe if you do that will make all of this easier.

This isn’t how I want to do this, but I know I’ll never get the words out if I have to say them to your face and they need to be said.

I have to remove myself from your life. You’re never going to get your dream if you’re always thinking about the guy you left behind. If you keep trying to be my partner and his partner. And more than anything I want to see you get that dream. Sometimes, I think that’s what got me through.

So I’m going to watch every moment I can. I’m not going to call or text and I’m not going to answer when you do, but know that I’m with you every step of the way.

It’s ok if you hate me. I hate me too.

I love you.  
S

She hates him.   
She absolutely fucking loathes him.  
But she also knows he’s right.

She goes back to Canton and feels like a part of her is missing. When Scott’s leg was amputated she read a lot about how he would feel and she remembers reading about phantom limb syndrome. That’s how she feels, as if her heart lives somewhere else and all that’s left for her is residual pain.

She skates well, better than she ever has because it’s the only thing that makes her feel anything.

And when a man starts to pay attention to her. She lets him. He’s handsome and admired and claims his marriage is over. Most importantly, he wants her. Tells her she’s beautiful, that he can’t get enough of her, that no one has ever understood him like she has. She doesn’t believe a word out of his mouth, but when he touches her she feels something. He’s nothing like Scott. Doesn’t touch her the way he would. Doesn’t understand a thing about her. She convinces herself that’s what she needs.

Charlie and Meryl retire. She isn’t surprised, but not seeing Charlie’s eager face around the arena is just another reminder that Scott isn’t there. That she really is all on her own.

All of Marina’s attention turns to her and Ben. They are going to win in Sochi if Marina has any say in the matter, and Tessa suspects that she has considerable say in the matter. She trains harder than she ever has, and if sometimes her legs throb in pain. At least she feels something.

Ben still yells at her and she can’t look at him with even pretend love, because he old technique of pretending he’s someone else is too painful to even contemplate. So now she yells back.

“No, stop!” Marina barks at them. “No more yelling.”

“She wasn’t…”

“He started…”  
“Now I will do they yelling.” She doesn’t, of course, because Marina has never needed to yell to make her point. “You are both going to therapy. You are too good to not win because you don’t know how to deal with your emotions. Like little children.”

Marina waves them off the ice and tells them not to come back until after they see the therapist. The appointment is already made.

Tessa’s lover tells her that she doesn’t need therapy. That’s she’s perfect the way she is. So she lets him fuck her however she wants. Tries not to imagine he's another man and fails.

She and Ben manage to waste three therapy appointments saying nothing of value before she finally cracks.

“He blames me for everything.” The words are out of her mouth and laying on the floor in the middle of the room before she even has time to consider if she meant to say them. She thinks that if she squinted hard enough, she might be able to read them etched into the carpet.

Jeanne, the therapist, a polite, middle-aged woman who has stopped dying her hair, raises one eyebrow at her. She supposes that her reaction is as close to gasping as a therapist ever gets.

“Let’s unpack what you just said,” Jeanne uses the same measured voice she always does even though Tessa just dropped a bomb on all of them. “Do you really believe that Benjamin blames you for everything?”

“My friends call me Ben,” he says it every session and Jeanne continues to call him Benjamin. Tessa has spent hours wondering why.

“Is that what you believe, Tessa?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t blame her for everything,” he pouts.

“You’ll have a chance to respond in a moment,” Jeanne says, even and caring. “Why do you feel that way, Tessa?”

“Because everything is my fault. Even if he’s the one who made the mistake. All he does is yell.”

“What do you have to say to your partner about that?”

Tessa readies herself for the explosion, but when Ben answers he just sounds exhausted. 

“I don’t mean to yell, but I’m just so tired of being compared to someone who I’m never going to live up to. So yeah, sometimes I let my feelings get the best of me and I yell.”

“Oh,” she says as if a punch to the gut has made her expel all the air in her body. “I didn’t mean to compare you.”

“But you do.” They might be breaking all the rules of therapy but Jeanne just nods. “I get that he’s important to you and that literally everyone likes him better than me…”

“Not everyone likes him better…”

“Marina would adopt him if she could,” he says with a snicker, and for a moment she can see why everyone finds him charming. “But when we’re on the ice together I need you to be my partner and he’s still the only partner you have.”

She wants to tell him he’s wrong but she knows he’s right. Wasn’t that what Scott was trying to tell her in her letter.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“I’m sorry too. I’m going to try really hard never to yell at you again,” Ben says and for the first time she really believes it.

“I think we’ve made some excellent progress here today. Tessa, Benjamin, let’s pick this back up where we left off next week.” Jeanne says with something approaching a smile.

“He really does prefer Ben.” Tessa says and surprises herself and if his expression is any indication, she surprises Ben too.

They skate better after that. He makes a conscious effort not to blame, not to yell. He does better avoiding the blaming than the yelling. She starts to realize that yelling is how he deals with frustration. Sometimes she lets him yell, as long as he’s yelling at the world and not her. When he forgets and yells at her, all it takes is a raised eyebrows or a hand on his arm and he stops.

In turn, she tries to be there for him. To forget that she had a previous partner. It’s easier because Scott doesn’t answer her texts or her calls, is steadfast in his determination to stay out of her life. He’s strong when she’s weak. Hasn’t that always been the way for them? When one falters, the other picks them up.

Ben and her start to develop a friendship. He’s easy to talk to and because he never knew Scott he never mentions him. They start to develop a little bubble around them. Nothing like the one she shared with Scott but something good and solid. Enough that when the other man in her life comes to the rink to pick her up, Ben finally says something.

“I don’t think he’s a good idea,” he says carefully as the pack their skate bags.

“Probably not,” she agrees but leaves with him anyway. She’s not ready to give up all her bad habits.

She searches the stands for Scott at Skate Canada. Knows she won’t find him there but can’t help wishing. Ben takes her hand and gives it a squeeze.

“You know he’s watching anyway he can, so let’s go out there and show him how good we are. That what he did was worth it,” he whispers to her as they take the ice. She never told him what happened between her and Scott but he knows. He’s a better person than she ever gave him credit for.

They win. 

They start to win everything.

NHK, miss winning GPF final by two points because sometimes they fall back into bad habits, but knock it out of the park at Nationals. They are the team to beat heading into Worlds, and they win that too.

Marina is ecstatic and doubles their therapy sessions.

When they go on tour, she and Ben truly become friends. Different than her friendship with Scott, because there was always something brewing underneath, a sense of something more. They spend a lot of their time together and when he confesses that he has a thing for one of the pairs girls who already has a boyfriend, they become confidents as well.

Going home for the break is hard. So hard that she tries to find a reason not. Her mother is not interested in any of her excuses. She hasn’t seen him in almost a year, hasn’t talked to him or even heard about him in all that time. She could have easily asked someone about him, but she felt better not knowing.

She spends all of her time at home hiding, because when she does go out she’s terrified of and desperate to run into him. But the time slips by and she doesn’t run into him, even when she deliberately ventures to his hometown, when she goes to the places that she knows he likes.

She starts to think she’s safe. It’s precisely when she stops thinking about running into him that she does.

Even though she’s still pretty young, her mother needs cataracts surgery. It’s a relatively quick surgery, in and out of the hospital in a few hours. Since she’s around and a dutiful daughter, she provides the transportation.

With nothing to do but wait, she heads down to the cafeteria and immediately sees Scott. 

For a moment she can’t move. She’s rooted to the spot. Dressed in scrubs and laughing with a group of women, he seems happy and healthy. No, signs of the dark circles and pallor that characterized his illness. He looks almost as good as the last time she saw him, in the dying light of the day, just as she lay her head on his bare chest.

She considers running. Can’t decide if this is breaking the rules. If it will destroy all the progress she’s made. She about to bolt when he suddenly looks in her direction, as if he sensed she was there. The slow, joyful smile that spreads across his features makes her stay.

He doesn’t say a word as he strides across the room and wraps her in a hug. They stay that way for too long, blocking access to the coffee machine as she lets every one of her senses take him in.

“I’m so happy to see you,” he says. Finally pulls back to take a look at her, must like what he sees because he nods and smiles.

She starts to speak and burst into choking, embarrassing sobs.

He pulls her into another hug. Leads her to a nearby table. The both start laughing.

“I’m just so, so happy to see you,” she says through her tears and giggles.

“You have a funny way of showing it.” He’s her mirror, laughing and crying just like her.

“I didn’t imagine you’d be here, but of course you are because you’re a nurse,” she stops short and grabs the shirt of his scars. “Oh my God, Scott you’re a nurse.”

“Not yet,” he laughs, and strokes a thumb across her cheek to dry her tears. “A few more months yet. I’m just doing my final practicum.”

“That’s…” she doesn’t know how to put everything she’s feeling into words. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m pretty proud of me too. Speaking of proud, what’s it like being world champion?”

“It’s pretty amazing.” She doesn’t say it would be more amazing with you. Those words don’t need to be spoken.

“I’m just finishing my break. Do you want to come up and see where I’m working?” The invitation is barely out of his mouth before she’s up and pulling him with her.

“I’m working paediatrics this week, which is my favourite, so you came at a good time,” he explains as they step into the elevator. She reaches over and threads her fingers through his. He doesn’t hesitate, just grips her hand tight.

The paediatric ward is colourful, but subdued, but as soon as Scott walks through the door he’s greeted with smiles and hellos. Just as with skating, everyone is glad to see him, he’s everyone’s best friend. But unlike skating, there’s an ease to him that she’s never seen before. He looks like he’s finally in the right place.

He shows her everything he can think of, introduces her to everyone. Person after person gives her a knowing smile, and after the tenth time she begins to wonder what he’s said about her. He’s explaining how the blood pressure machine works, when one of the senior nurses comes over to him.

“Scott, I hate to bother you but Omar pulled his IV out and he’s refusing to let anyone touch him except for his favourite nurse, do you think you could?” 

“For Omar, anything.” He starts to walk away, but turns back with a panicked look on his face. “You’ll be here when I get back?”

“I have to go get my mom soon, but I’ll be here.”

She watches him walk away, not sure what to do until the nurse who came to get him turns to her.

“Oh, honey, you should go watch.” 

The nurse, who’s name tag reads Maggie, leads her down the hall and to a room. They stand at the door and watch as Scott makes a teary eyed little boy laugh. When Omar has calmed down, she watches as Scott explains everything he’s going to do. He expertly inserts and starts the IV.

“Little dude, Omar,” he says with a wink, once everything is in place. “I’m going to need you to keep this in your hand for awhile, ok?”

“I don’t like it,” Omar pouts.

“I know, neither did I when I had one.”

“You had one?”

“Back when I was sick like you,” he explains and this time his wink is for Tessa. “But keeping it on, made me better. So do you think you could try and put up with it for me.”

“I’ll try,” the little boy answers solemnly.

“So, you’re Tessa?” Maggie says while Scott jokes around with Omar. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”  
“Really?” She doesn’t know why she’s surprised.

“He never stops talking about you, honey. And now that I see the way he looks at you, I can understand why he keeps turning down every pretty girl who asks him on a date.” Maggie gives her arm a squeeze and disappears down the hall.

“Do you want me to walk you down to where your mom is?” he asks her as he joins her at the doorway.

She can only nod in answer, not sure she trusts herself to speak.

He chatters the entire walk back. Tells her about school and his family. Everything she missed. 

“It’s meant everything to see you, T,” he says when it’s finally time for them to part. He has to get back to work and she needs to collect her mom.

“Me too.”

“You were brilliant at Worlds. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you,” he gives her a hug and asks shyly, “I’ll text you later?”

“I’d really like that.”

When she goes home the first thing she does is text her married man to end things.

They don’t see each other again while she’s home. If they can be in each other’s lives they need to find a balance that allows them to have their own lives with getting overwhelmed with each other. If they spend time alone, she knows they’ll go straight to overwhelmed in a heartbeat.

He texts her funny stories about patients and she sends back pictures of the cottage and one night they spend an hour crying on the phone, when a little girl on the ward passes away.

“Looks like you two made up, huh?” Ben says the second she walks through the door on their first day back. “I haven’t seen that smile in awhile.”

At first she worries about the affect her renewed friendship with Scott will have on her partnership with Ben, but it’s better this time. She can be Ben’s partner and his friend and still have Scott in her life. The world feels like a better place.

It shows in her skating. She’s technically better than she’s ever been, but now she feels freer. That she’s doing it for herself and not for anyone else.

Marina gives them a sexy program that demands she be a seductress, Ben her willing prey. She’s hesitant at first but she draws on her memories of one night at the cottage and she’s found her inspiration. Ben giggles every time he has to put his hands on her ass, much to Marina’s chagrin.

“But it’s Tessa’s ass. It’s just so ridiculous,” he tries to explain but even talking about her ass makes him laugh. She’s not sure she likes having her ass described as ridiculous, but she has the same reaction every time she has to rake her nails down his chest, so she can’t complain.

But somehow they manage to sell it when they’re on the ice. So much so that the internet starts to buzz with rumours they’re a couple. Bessa blogs start popping up on the internet. They find the whole idea hysterical, and start to play it up when ever they know cameras are on then.

The whole thing is a big joke, until Scott texts her after they win Skate Canada with a particularly raunchy performance.

S: Congrats, T. You were amazing.

T: We kicked butt today.

S: Did you ever. First place by ten points.

T: It’s finally starting to fall into place.

She’s already back at her hotel room, in her pyjamas. Ben’s gone off to party with other skaters in the hopes that his pairs skater will finally notice he exists.

S: So, about you and Ben…

“Oh,” she says to her empty room. She definitely doesn’t want him thinking that.

T: No. 

T: There is no Ben and I. 

T: Definitely not.

She can’t type fast enough.

S: You just looked… I don’t know, into it.

T: During that program, I’m only thinking about one man’s hands on me and it definitely isn't his.

S: Oh.

T: I can’t stop thinking about that night.

S: I can’t either.

T: Can I call you?

S: Is that a good idea?

T: Why do you always have to be so rational about this.

S: Rational is the last word I used to describe how I’m feeling right now.

T: Then call me. You’re not going to hurt me. It’s not going to ruin everything for us. You’re just going to give me what I want.

She’s barely hit send when the phone rings.

“This probably isn’t a good idea.” His voice is low and husky, the same flavour it was that night at the cottage.

“When I’m with him on ice all I can do is think about how your hands feel on me,” she ignores his hesitation. She needs him to hear this, she never got a chance then. “The way you touch me, no one has ever made me feel that way. I don’t think anyone ever will.”

He groans. It’s the best sound she’s heard in a long time.

“That night is all I think about. When I touch myself, I go back to it. When I let another man touch me, it’s only so I can have a glimpse of what that night felt like. It consumes me.”

“This is so dangerous.” His words come out in tortured pants. She wonders if he’s touching himself. Lets her hands wander a little.

“What’s dangerous is ignoring what we felt. What we still feel. Don’t you ever think about that night?” she desperate, needs him to feel the same way about that night as she does.

“Fuck, T. It’s all I ever think about.”

That’s all she needs. Its’s like a damn breaks inside them. Everything that was holding them back. She whispers all the things she remembers, and the things she still wants to do to him, with him.

He talks to her in a way he never has before. A little filthy, a little possessive.

“No goodbye notes,” she says when her breathing has slowed but she still feels that overwhelming euphoria.

“It took everything in me to walk away from you once.” he sighs his defeated sigh. “I can’t do it again.”

“It was the right thing to do at the time,” she sits up because this feels important. “But can't we maybe, let ourselves have this.”

“Phone sex?” he jokes.

“Scott!”

“The beginning of something?” he says carefully, almost as if he doesn’t trust the words he’s saying. “I know we’re still far away from each other and it won’t be easy, but yeah, a beginning.”

“I know I’m tired of endings,” there’s this joy that bubbles up inside her and makes her want to dance around the room. 

“Then, let’s try a beginning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by Photograph by Ed Sheeran.
> 
> As always comments are appreciated, loved, cherished and sometimes the only thing that keeps me writing more.
> 
> If you want to say hi, I'm rookandpawn1 over at Twitter


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done. My three chapter one shot is finally done. And it owns my heart.
> 
> So much thanks to LPM who's editing and emotional support made this possible.
> 
> And to walkinrobe who tells me I'm brilliant and breaks it to me gently when I'm not. Her suggestions always make my work better.

Sometimes, beginnings take time. She wants to immediately run into his arms and never let go but she’s in the thick of competition season and there’s no time to breathe let alone for romance. Luckily, he’s one of the few people who’s uniquely qualified to understand exactly what she’s going through.

She barely has time to text him, let alone speak to him, or god forbid, spend time with him. To be fair, he’s just as busy as he heads into his final exams and certification. They’re together in her mind, she just has to wait for the physical part, no matter how difficult it might be.

If she’s happy about her reunion with Scott, Ben is ecstatic. He lets out a whoop of joy and spins her in the air.

“I didn’t think you were that invested in my romantic life,” she laughs as he sets her down.

“I figure if you two idiots can work it out then there’s hope for me and Alina.” He blushes as he says his pairs skater’s name, as he always does when he dares to mention her. “Plus maybe this can be the end of Bessa. My mom keeps asking me to bring you home for dinner. She doesn’t understand what a showmance is, even though I’ve explained it four times.”

She and Ben may want to end Bessa but Marina will hear nothing of the idea.

“What? People are finally starting to pay attention to you and give you good marks because I make them think you are in love and you want to ruin it because you are in love with other people? No, absolutely not.” She gives them a look that she imagines many Russians received before being sent of to the gulag. 

“But Scott…”

“Scott will understand,” Marina silences her with a glare. “And if he does not, I will explain it to him.”

Tessa has no doubt that Marina could make anyone understand anything she wanted them to.

She expects Scott to be angry when she tells him, but instead he just laughs.

“Baby, you go out there and make the world think you love Ben. I know what’s real and that’s all that’s important.”

All she can think about is how she wants to hear him call her baby in person, hopefully whispered in her ear.

So she and Ben continue with their on and off ice “romance” and they continue to win everything (except for the GPF, they both have colds and make several mistakes). Her cold drags through December and she’s never been so glad to see the Christmas break. She needs the rest and she needs Scott. Needs to feel his arms around her.

He’s waiting for her at baggage claim with the same Virtue sign from the last time he picked her up at the airport. Something about the sign, which he kept, she imagines, carefully folded in his drawer, as if he always knew he’d be the one to pick her up again, makes her burst into tears.

“I thought you’d be happy to see me,’ he says as he pulls her into a hug. But he understands, because he’s crying too.

They let go faster this time. Grab her bag and get the hell out of there. They have a reunion to get to. 

She can’t stop touching him. His hair, his face, his hands. She might be a worse driving distraction than a cell phone. But he looks so good, so healthy and happy and she needs him to be real, so she touches him to make sure.

He takes her to his apartment.

“You have an apartment,” she says with wonder as they enter the second floor walk up. It’s small with big windows and immaculately tidy. She wonders if he cleaned up for her or if it always looks like this. “I somehow thought we’d be going to your parent’s place.”

“Well, I’m an actual grown up now, with an actual job, so my parents thought that as a big boy I could live on my own,” he jokes. His eyes sparkle.

“I love you,” she says so suddenly that the words take her by surprise, but she means them. She’s told him she loves him a hundred times but she means them in a completely different way than she ever has before.

“I love you, too.” He carefully puts her bag down and smiles. Of course he understands. “Baby, I love you so much.”

They don’t let go of each other for the rest of the night.

“I have to work on Christmas day,” he says later than night. They’re half asleep and she’s snuggled into his side. “Low man on the totem pole.”

“And you volunteered,” she guesses.

“I volunteered,” he admits and she can feel his smile in her hair. “But I want to spend as much time together because…”

“Because?”

“I’m not going to be able to get time off to come to Nationals.” She can hear the regret in his voice. Worlds are easy. Right in their hometown, but she’d been hoping he’d also be able to make it to Nationals which are relatively close by in Ottawa.

“I understand.”

“I don’t.” There’s a distant echo of the old anger in his voice. Frustration over things he can’t control. “I wanted to be there, but I also want to keep my job.”

“You’re always with me. Doesn’t matter where you are.” She snuggles in closer.

“I’d still like to be there in person,” he grumbles, but seems content.

She’s almost asleep when he speaks again.

“Are you free tomorrow night?” he’s almost shy in his request. She’s never seen that side of him before.

“My plans for this entire trip are: spend as much time as possible with Scott Moir.” Also with her family, but he’s her top priority. She’d spend her entire break in his bed if she could. “What’s special about tomorrow night?”

“I joined a sledge hockey league and it’s our first game.”

“Scott!” She twists around until they’re face to face. “That’s so exciting.”

They’d watched some of the sledge hockey together during the paralympics in Vancouver. Scott had been fascinated by his favourite game being played by athletes on sleds. She’d wanted suggest he take up the sport but she could tell he wasn’t ready then. She’s completely forgotten about it since.

“I miss competing,” he says, his face is soft and relaxed and all she wants to do is kiss him but she also wants to hear everything he has to say. Can she do both at the same time? “I miss the training too. I want to get back in shape.”

“You’ve really let yourself go,” she agrees as she runs her hands down his hard arms and six pack. She knows he works out everyday, seems determined to be in the same shape he was in when he lost his leg.

“You know what I mean,” he giggles as she finds one of the two ticklish parts on his body. “I miss the discipline. I miss being part of a team.”

They were a small team, but they were an important one.

She loves watching him on ice. Even in this new capacity, in a sport that’s both brutal and she thinks maybe a little dangerous, he’s beautiful. You can take the boy out of ice dance but you can’t take the ice dance out of the boy.

She could do without the crashing into each other and the pointy teeth on the end of the sticks make her nervous, but Scott is having the best time, and the way he works his arms makes her think of things other than hockey. He’s already something of a leader on the ice, despite it being his first game, and she can tell the other guys on the team love him.

They win their game by a decent margin and Scott racks up three assists, but no goals. 

He comes out of the dressing room with a giant smile on his face and wraps her in the biggest hug. Freshly showered, and full of adrenaline, might be her favourite version of him, so she lets herself enjoy the feeling of his tight embrace far longer than is probably appropriate. 

“Drinks with the guys?” she asks when they finally break apart, but immediately find each other’s hands. She’s only been home for a day and she’s already dreading leaving, can’t get enough of being able to touch him whenever she wants.

“I told them I couldn’t tonight. Needed to spend the night with my best gal while I have the chance,” he kisses her nose, and then tucks a stand of her hair behind her ear.

“I would have understood.” She’d go anywhere with him, as long as they were together.

“I wouldn’t.” He grabs her hand and pulls her into the night.

The Moirs decide to move their Christmas celebration to Christmas Eve, to accommodate both Scott’s work schedule. Santa will still come in the morning, and the kids will open the majority of their gifts then, but everything else has been moved a day earlier.

She wasn't sure if things would be different now that she’s officially Scott’s significant other, but it’s exactly the same as it has always been. They’ve always treated her like a part of their large, loud family, and she imagines that no matter what happens they always will.

“He was a bear to be around without you. Glad to have you back,” Joe says when he gives her a hug, and it’s the only acknowledgement of her absence.

There’s too much food, and children and noise and so much more love than she could possibly imagine. She hoards every moment of it and tucks it aside for when she’s far away and needs it. Commits to memory the smell of Alma’s baking, the sound of all three Moir bothers laughing in exactly the same way at exactly the same time, the sight of Scott with his cousin’s newborn asleep on his chest and the feeling of her heart signing in her chest with the idea that one day they could recreate that scene with a child of her own.

She finds herself tearing up when her cheeks don’t hurt from smiling, because she never knew that life could be like this. Could feel so utterly right. And every time she looks up at him, she sees the same tears, the same smiles, the same contentment.

They leave just before midnight, full of food and love and with a stack of presents. They haven’t exchanged presents yet. He’d insisted on waiting until they were alone, even though her present for him has been burning a hole in her pocket all day.

“We can’t stay up late,” he says even though he's the one with his hands up her shirt as soon as they get through the door. “I have to be at work in less than seven hours.”

“Then you should keep your hands to yourself,” she chastises and means it, but can’t help but grab a handful of his ass while she does. “Can I give you your present now?”

“Yes, you can!” He’s like a little kid when it comes to presents, and he runs and sits on the floor beside the tiny Christmas tree that they put up the day before. It’s covered in so many strings of lights that it’s starting to sag under the weight. They don’t bother to turn on the overhead lights, instead letting the Christmas lights cast a soft glow over the room. 

“Gimme,” he stretches his hands like a toddler and pulls her into his lap as he takes the present from her.

She’s nervous as she watches him open it. She hadn’t been until that moment but suddenly she worries that he won’t like it. That he’ll think she spent too much on it. She did, a good chunk of the money from the GPF, that she should have given to Marina or spent on some new skates. Or that he won’t understand the significance.

She’s so busy enumerating her worries that she completely misses him opening the present, looks up to see that he’s holding the nurse’s watch she gave him with adoration on his face.

“T, it’s perfect.”

“I had it engraved,” she explains and flips the watch over in his hands to reveal her simple message. 

I’ll always find the time for you.

He doesn’t say anything, just hugs her and hugs her.

“I got you something too,’ he says when he finally deems her hugged enough. “It’s not as fancy…”

“I’m bet it’s perfect.” It’s funny to see him unsure of himself and in some ways it makes her love him even more. 

“I’m not going to lie, I wanted to get you a ring,” she gasps a little at his admission. “But it’s too fast and I don’t have the money for a good ring yet.”

She’d marry him with no ring, but he’s right; it is too fast. They’ve know each other forever, but they’ve only been a couple for a few months. This is the first time they’ve seen each other in person, but if he’d asked, she would have said yes.

“But I wanted you to have a piece of me with you. To know I’m always with you,” he babbles a little and then pushes a terribly wrapped box into her hands.

She carefully unwraps the gift, cherishing every moment until he looks like he’s going to grab it out of her hands and rip the paper open himself. There’s a wooden box inside, it looks like an old fashioned jewelry box. Sure enough, when she opens it a little ballerina pops up and music starts playing. It takes a moment, but she recognizes the tune from their last free dance together, and she bursts into tears.

“Baby,” he sighs and pulls her back into the hug like he’s never going to let her go. “That’s not even the real present.” 

He loosens his grip on her enough that she can look in the music box again. Resting in the bottom, she finds a necklace. As she pulls it out of the box she realizes that it’s the chain he’s worn around his neck as long as she can remember. 

“I can’t…” she knows how much it means to him. 

“I want you to.” He kisses her head and the puts the chain around her neck. It’s heavy and warm against her skin. “You can give it back when I give you another reminder of how I’m going to be in your life forever.”

She just nods. That’s a promise that’s easy to keep.

Time feels like an enemy.

It speeds up whenever they’re together and drags when they’re apart. Before she can blink it’s New Year’s Eve. They watch the clock change from 11:59 to 12:00 in the comfort of his bed. Everyone they knew invited them to parties, but they knew they only wanted to be together, alone, and in Scott’s opinion naked. He got his wish.

“My mom always says, start the year how you want to spend it and I really pulled that off this year.” He nips at her ear and she giggles. She strokes strokes his thigh without thinking and for the first time he doesn’t pull away when she comes close to the spot where it ends. She loves every part of him and thinks he’s finally starting to understand that.

“I don’t think we can spend the entire year naked in bed.”

The fact that she has to leave in a few hours lingers over them, makes her desperate to hang onto the precious minutes she has left. She’s not going to go to sleep. She’s going to make every second count.

“No, we can’t.” There’s a sadness in his voice that she can’t listen to anymore, so she pulls him into a kiss. They might as well make every second last.

She’s melancholic but determined when she returns to training. If she has to be away from him then she’s going to make sure it’s for a reason. And that reason is because she’s going to win a gold medal for both of them.

Ben seems as determined as she is and they really are functioning as a team, focused on a single goal they start working together in a way that echoes what she had with Scott. She feels a fire and a purpose as she heads into Nationals that she’s never felt before.

She’s sure she’s going to win when they arrive in Ottawa and their first practice is fire. All the other teams get out of their way, because they know champions when they see them. Nationals should be a cake walk until they’re not.

The morning of the rhythm dance she wakes up with a tickle in her throat and her joints aching. She decides that the sore throat is just allergies and the sore joints are from an unfamiliar bed. But by the time lunch hits she can’t get warm and it becomes painfully obvious that she is in fact sick and getting sicker by the minute. By the time they skate their waltz, she’s running a fever of 104 and the entire dance is a blur. Ben manages to keep her on her feet for most of the time but she trips coming out of a twizzle and crashes into him. It’s a disaster, and she can’t even care because all her concentration is on making it through the kiss and cry without puking.

They end up in third mostly through the good will of the judges, and she makes it to the bathroom before throwing up so hard she almost passes out.

She’s not sure how she gets back to the hotel. She won’t let Ben touch her, but she thinks he helps her into the cab where Marina hands her a plastic bag to throw up into. She swims through her haze and her fever to make it to her room, finds a the trash can and brings it to the bed where she collapses.

The night is a blur. She’s freezing and too hot. She makes so many trips to the bathroom and her whole body just aches. 

Then the hallucinations start. She thinks her tissue box is levitating. The room is spinning and turning green. That there’s a bunny in the corner of the room. She doesn’t mind the bunny until he tries to eat her toes. 

She so, so thankful when her mind conjures up Scott late, late into the night. Hallucination Scott makes her take pain killers, puts cold cloths on her head and whispers beautiful words in her ear and calls her baby. He’s holding her tight when she finally falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Her fever is gone when she wakes up late into the morning, but for a moment she thinks she might still be hallucinating because she can feel the cold metal of Scott’s prosthetic pressed up against her. Which is ridiculous, because he never goes to bed with it on and he’s in London. She only truly realizes he’s asleep beside her when he lets out a sudden snore and jolts awake.

“I should check your temperature,” he mumbles, not quite awake, but already half way out of the bed. He’s a little unsteady on his feet and drops back down.

“You’re here?” her mind won’t quite let her accept the idea. “You can’t be here. You have to work.”

“Do you think I would be anywhere else when you need me?” he says as he retrieves a thermometer from the night stand and pops it in her mouth. Doesn’t let her speak until he’s satisfied that indeed her fever has broken.

“How?” is all she can manage.

“I was watching your skate and I could tell you were sick during the warm up. I got in my car and drove here. Marina let me in.” he says with a shrug as if his behaviour is no big deal instead of extraordinary. 

“Won’t you get in trouble?” 

“I traded a couple shifts with Marjorie. She was looking for someone to cover for her so she can have her cat’s birthday off, so it all worked out.” He’s limping a little as he bustles around the room. She knows he’s got to be sore from sleeping in his prosthetic but he’ll never admit it.

“I love you.” There’s so much more she could say, but that's really the important part.

“Me too.” He grins at her and drops a kiss on her forehead. “Let’s get you into the shower and start getting you rehydrated so you’re ready for the free.”

“You should rest,” she says when he tries to help her up. “You’re limping.”

“I’m fine.” He answers without making eye contact.

“You’re not.”

“T,” he barks a little, and then instantly regrets it. “Just let me take care of you. I promise I’ll rest.”

“Ok.” She should insist, but she knows he needs these little victories, so she doesn’t.

“You were watching the rhythm dance?” she asks when she’s in the shower. Every drop of water makes her feel more like a human being.

“We had it on in the lounge. All the kids and nurses were watching together,” he says from the chair he’s pulled into the bathroom. He's rubbing the muscle above his knee and wincing a little. Letting his face betray his pain because he doesn’t think she can see him.

“That’s nice,”

“I had to tell them that Piper was my girlfriend after you fell. Didn’t want to ruin my reputation.” 

The washcloth she throws at him hits him square in the face.

Scott delivers her to the arena and gets a hug from Ben and a hug and several hearty thumps on the back from Marina, before he has to go. He hasn’t rested and he’s been wearing his prosthetic for far too long, but he has to drive back immediately or miss his next shift. Even though she’s worried, she doesn’t say anything. She has to remember to respect his choices the way he’s always respected hers. So, she gives him a kiss that tells him exactly how much she loves, appreciates, and is going to miss him. Ben is actually blushing by the time they pull apart.

They win the free skate, but they lose their national championship. They were too far back to make up the difference. The loss would have bothered her in the past, but now she accepts it as another step in the journey.

There’s no time to see him in the lead up to World’s. There’s no time to see him once they get to World’s. She withdraws into the little cocoon of her and Ben. If she wants to win, she can’t focus on anyone else. So she doesn’t call him, doesn’t text him, but she can never stop thinking about him. 

The waltz is a breeze. They has the performance that she couldn’t pull together for Nationals. She looks at Ben like she loves him and only him, as Scott sits somewhere in the stands. Sometimes she feels guilty, but she knows that he understands. The internet goes insane. People are sure that they’re about to get married. That Bessa is the definition of true love. She's glad that her actual true love still has a flip phone.

She’s uncommonly nervous going into the free skate, not sure if it’s knowing that the crowd is composed of so many people she knows, or if she’s not used to the feeling of being a favourite. She can’t quite calm down and their warm up is messy and leaves her shaky and unsure. They’re skating last and the longer she waits, the more nervous she is. She needs Scott, who she hasn’t seen yet, but she also knows she has to figure out how to find peace in her own way. So, she separates herself from Ben and the chaos of the competition and pulls the chain out from where it’s hidden down the front of her costume. The chain slips through her fingers, the warm metal soothing as she rubs, slows her breathing down and lets go. The repetitive motion lulls her, first calms her vibrating body and then her overactive mind.

When she returns to Ben, she takes his hand and she’s at peace. She doesn’t need to find Scott in the audience, she knows he’s there, can feel him.

His presence is confirmed, when their program starts and he lets out such a roar from the audience that the microphones on the cameras pick it up. It’s like he’s there on the ice with her. She has two partners instead of one. They fly through the program and the audience loses it when they take their final pose. The stomping and clapping goes on for far too long, but since they’re the last skaters, she just enjoys the moment. Lets Ben hug her tight while they wait for their marks.

They win. Of course they do. How could they not.

And then she wins again when she goes back to her hotel room and he’s there waiting for her with the proudest look on his face.

She wakes up the next morning to the sound of her phone buzzing, and buzzing and buzzing. No matter how little sleep she got, and there was precious little of that as she was up most of the night celebrating, the buzzing is too loud and consistent to ignore.

He makes a muffled sound of protest as she gets out of bed, but doesn't really wake up, exchanging the her for the pillow. 

There are so many notifications on her phone that she doesn’t quite know what to do. It takes her several minutes but she finally tracks down a blog that seems to be the source of the problem. When she opens the home page of www.bessa4life.com, she’s greeted with a giant headline that asks: IS BESSA A LIE.

There’s a post which has pictures that someone must have taken of her right before the free dance, holding Scott’s chain and then a close up of it against her chest before she tucked into her costume. Then there are several pictures of Scott wearing the same chain, back when they were still skating together.

The comments start with denials.   
There’s no way that she could look at Ben the way she does and be with Scott.  
It was obviously a gift between friends.  
It probably only looks like Scott’s necklace.  
Ben and Tessa are in love and everyone should stop trying to prove otherwise.  
They’d heard from a friend that Ben and Tessa lived together.

But then someone produces a picture of Scott and her kissing goodbye backstage at Nationals before he left. It was quite a kiss at the time and the pictures don’t leave much to the imagination. Fuck! She should have been more careful.

Then the comments really take a turn.  
The lied to us.  
I can’t believe it’s not real.

They call her every horrible name she can imagine. Bring up her affair with the married man. She doesn’t care about the names. She’s used to those, but what they say about Scott has her in tears.

Why would she choose a cripple over that fine specimen of a man?  
She must just feel sorry for him.  
Would a real man even become a nurse?  
What could he possibly offer her with only one leg?  
The sex must be terrible.  
The blog has been shared and tweeted hundreds of times.

She shuts off her phone and resists the temptation to fling it across the room.

She’s shaking when she climbs back into bed, her mind spinning with ways she can control the situation, make everything better.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” he asks, not bothering to open his eyes as he gives her pillow back. 

“It’s nothing,” she kisses his neck in an effort to distract him.

“Don’t lie to me,” he’s gentle in his chastising but she knows he’s not going to be distracted. 

She considers editing the story to leave out the awful comments about him, but she can’t protect him from it. No matter how much she wants to. When he asks to see the blog, she shows it to him. Watches his face as it shifts from disbelief, to horror, to anger.

He gives her a gentle kiss, as he hands her back the phone, carefully straps on his prothetic with his back to her and then walks into the bathroom. The litany of curses that follow the slamming of the door break her heart.

He paces the room when he comes out, desperately trying to contain his anger and frustration. He was like this a lot when they were younger and still competing. She wonders if he still is and just hides it from her, or if this is just a regression.

“Scott…” she starts.

“I just need a minute.” He tears his hands through his hair, a sure sign that he is not alright. She doesn’t go to him, she’s known him long enough that she has to let him get the energy out of his system before he can talk. It takes five minutes of pacing, clenched fists and angry mumbling, before he winds himself down enough to sit down on the bed beside her.

He takes her hand but doesn’t look at her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… They’re right.”

Of all the things she expected him to say, that’s the absolute last thing. What does he mean?

“You and I being together is crazy,” he says as he grips her hand a little harder before pulling it away. “I am holding you back.”

“What? No.” She grabs at his hand but he refuses to take it, just lets his hand lay limply at his side as she clutches for it. His shoulders are slumped and he just looks…defeated. 

Fuck.

“T. Everyone knows it. I’ve been kidding myself…”

“No!” she explodes and that finally gets him to look at her. “You are not allowed to think that.”

She slides off the bed and drops between his knees, the metal and plastic almost comforting against her skin this time.

“I love you. I love everything about you and I won’t hear a thing against the man I love.”

“But why?” He shakes his head and sighs. “At least before I could give you the skating. Now I’ve got nothing.”

“Except, I didn’t love that Scott.” She loved him, but she wasn’t in love with him. She doesn’t have to explain, they both knew. “Sure he was a great skater but he was also selfish and angry and kind of a slut.”

She gets a smile from him on that one. Looking back, she’s not sure if they would have gotten to where the are now if everything had stayed the same. They were both so changed by what happened.

“This Scott is kind, and generous and always puts everyone else first.”

“And is only a slut for you.” He finally looks at her, grips the fingers she’s trying to hold.

“And what a slut he is.”

“It’s hard…” he takes a deep breath, she can see the admission is difficult for him. “It’s hard not to get insecure sometimes.”

“Hey, I feel the same way when I see all the pretty nurses bat their eyelashes at you.” When she’d visited him at the hospital on Christmas day one of the nurses had the audacity to flirt with him right in front of her. It had taken all her self control not to rip off that bitch’s weave.

“The other nurses bat their eyelashes at me?” She just shakes her head at his genuine surprise. She can’t believe he has so little idea of how good looking he is. “You really like this version of me better.”

“The old version of you was kind of a dick.”

“He was,” he agrees and pulls her up onto the bed. He’s the strongest man she’s ever known. She thinks he always will be.  
“What are we going to do?” She snuggles into him, finds shelter in his warmth.

“About the blog? Nothing.” He brushes the hair from off her shoulders and starts to undo the buttons on her pyjama shirt, which is fair since she’s already working his up his torso. “I’m sure it will all blow over.”

It doesn’t blow over, but she finds she doesn’t care. How can she when she gets to spend the off season with him.

Without discussing it, she moves into his apartment and it quickly becomes theirs. He works long shifts, so she cooks and cleans while keeping up with her workouts and training. And she loves it. This feeling of unhurried domesticity that she’s never had in her life. Just being with him, without the world watching or judging might be the greatest pleasure she’s ever experienced. Well, the sex that gets better as they learn each other is the greatest pleasure, but she feels almost guilty for that part. 

She never thought sex could be like this. An exchange, a give and take, instead of a demand and answer. That there could still be so much passion in the midst of ease and familiarity. That sex could be sleepy, and lazy, and silly, and kind and comforting.

She learns that last lesson in a way she wishes she hadn’t had to.

He loves his job, loves it in a way that he never loved skating. He never complains. Even when he comes home from work exhausted, or vomit covered, he never has anything negative to say. He takes extra shifts when people need him to cover and his smile lights up the hospital.

So when he comes home in the wee hours of the morning, and he doesn’t immediately climb into bed with her and kiss her into complete wakefulness, she knows that something is very wrong. She finds him in sitting in the dark, staring into nothing and holding an unopened can of beer.

“Calum,” he says when he senses her presence in the room. She doesn’t say anything, just wraps her arms around his neck and cradles his head against her stomach.

Scott loves all the kids. Loves them when they’re cranky, or horrible or strange. Loves them when they’re scared and funny and even when they puke on him. Seems to love them most when they’re a combination of all of those things combined together. But he's never loved a kid the way he loves Callum.

They’re kindred spirits the two of them. Both with a devastating smile and a mop of unruly hair. Both with too much energy and a way with the ladies. And most importantly, a deep and abiding love for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Scott updates her on his new best friend on an almost daily basis. How brave he is during his chemo treatment, about the argument about who was the Leaf’s best player, how well he handles losing his hair, the time he and Callum organize a hockey game in the hallways and even get the meanest nurse on the ward to participate. Turns out she’s an incredible goalie.

She celebrates with him when Callum is deemed well enough to go home. Never worries once about the little boy, because as Scott is quick to point out, childhood leukaemia is scary but surprisingly survivable. She isn’t even worried when Callum is readmitted to the hospital, assuming all will be well until Scott comes home from work, ashen and uneasy.

Callum’s diagnosis isn’t good. His cancer has metastasized. But Scott has faith. He knows that Callum’s a fighter and can get through. And she allows herself to get swept up in his optimism, believes he’ll get better even when Scott’s eyes and tired face reveal the truth.

When things looked bad, he’d gone into work early just to be there. When she hadn’t heard from him she’d thought everything was alright for another day.

“He didn’t…” he can’t finish his sentence.

She holds him until her shirt is soaked with his tears and her face is soaked with hers. Strokes his hair and whispers useless words of comfort, until he stands up and kisses her with a desperation she’s never experienced before. She returns his kiss with a fierceness she didn’t know she was feeling.

Their hands make quick work of their clothes as they make their way to the bedroom. His hands don’t stop moving, seeking comfort in all the parts of her. He’s unrelenting in the way he touches her, almost as if he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he lets her go for even a moment.

As soon as he lays her down on the bed, his tongue replaces his hands, insistent and demanding.

“Scott, please,” she whispers pulling him up to her mouth. The only thing that’s going to make them feel better is when he’s fully buried inside her. 

They move together at a pace that’s different than before. She lets him take everything he needs from her, but in the end he still makes sure she comes before he allows himself to follow.

He rests his head on her chest after and she strokes his hair. They’re both cried out for now. There will be more tears later. 

“T?” he props his chin up so he can look her in the eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she says automatically, and yet means it with her whole heart.

“Will you marry me?” he says with a smile she wasn’t expecting. “I wasn’t going to ask because it’s too soon and it should be a whole romantic thing, but fuck it. Life’s too short for us to waste another minute. Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” There was never going to be any other answer across her lips.

“Are you sure? Because I could get sick again,” the words stick in his throat, as he blinks away the tears threatening. “Relapses are high with my kind of cancer.”

They don’t talk about it, this threat looming over them, but she can feel the shadow of it in everything he does.

“All the reason to do it as soon as possible. I want every second I can with you.”

He kisses her again. It’s still sad and heartbroken, but now somehow full of hope. “Okay. Great. Let's get married. When?”

“As soon as possible,” she answers. He’s right. There's no point in waiting.

And even more important, she doesn’t want to.

She thought they’d face some resistance from their families. Not to the idea of them getting married, she’s pretty sure their moms have been planning their weddings since they were children. But she was ready for all their objections to the idea of pulling off a wedding in just under a week. None came. Sure both Charlie and Danny made snide remarks about her being pregnant, but the families just went into planning mode.

She doesn’t want a big wedding. That was a dream for childhood. What she wants is to get married at the cottage. In the place where everything changes for them, it seems only fitting they would celebrate another milestone.

There are only three people present when she goes shopping for her wedding dress. Her mother, Jordan and Alma ooo and ahhh over the various dresses she tries on, but it’s the simple, knee length lace dress that makes everyone cry and the one she ends up picking. She eschews a veil in favour of flowers in her hair.

They set up a few chairs at the end of the dock, but don’t bother to to decorate, nature is enough. It’s just their family coming anyway. The only thing anyone wants to look at is the happy couple anyway.

“Can I come in?” he asks through the door with only fifteen minutes to go. She sent her mom and Jordan away so she could have a few minutes peace and he must have waited until he knew she was alone.

“I thought it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” she calls back, but she's already on her feet and half way to the door.

“I think we’ve already had our fair share of bad luck, don’t you think?” 

He’s pressed up against the door when she opens it and he falls into the room, catching his balance at the last minute. They clutch at each other for a moment, giggling and she can’t think of a better way to start her wedding.

“Fuck, baby, you look gorgeous.” he says when he stops laughing and finally really looks at her. She’s worn her hair down and softly curled and went with minimal make up because he likes her better fresh faced. They way he looks at her, all soft and adoring, like he can't quite believe she’s real, makes her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

“You’re pretty handsome yourself.” He’s wearing the suit and tie she picked out for him and he looks just as good as she imagined. Even better he didn't get a haircut like he was threatening, so his hair is the perfect length.

He just stares at her for so long that she almost laughs.

“Did you come here for a reason, or are you just going to stare at me?”

“I did come for a reason, but could I just stare at you for a few more minutes?” It’s her turn to giggle as he looks her over from head to toe twice and then walks over to her and places his hands on her waist. “I came to give you one last chance to back out, because once we say those vows, I’m never letting you go.”

“Why would I back out?”

“It’s a lot to take on. What if I get sick again?” he asks as he rests his cheek on hers, careful not to disturb her hair or make up.

“Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t be by your side, whether I have a ring on my finger or not? I’m already yours forever.”

“Ok,” he says letting out the breath she hadn’t realized he had been holding. “I’ll always understand if you walk away.”

“Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t.” She kisses him on the cheek, lingers there for a bit, perfect makeup be damned. “Now get out of here. I have a wedding to get to.”

“He’s one lucky guy,” he says from the doorway.

“The luckiest,” they say together.

She walks down the aisle to the end of the dock, as the sun starts to dip in the sky, to a recording of Clair de Lune. Scott, who’s already crying, is waiting for her at the end. The priest from his family church, who Alma somehow talked into performing the non-Catholic ceremony, marries them while they are surrounded by their families. They go with the traditional vows and she makes sure to place special emphasis on the in sickness part. Enough that their families can’t help but laugh through their tears. He places the simple gold ban on her finger, there wasn’t time to get an engagement ring and she never really wanted one. When she slides the ring on his finger, she feels as sense of completeness that she never realized she was missing.

When they kiss, there’s a collective whoop from their families. And just like that, she’s Tessa Virtue-Moir. Their names forever joined in a way that they were always meant to be.

The party lasts through the night and only starts to break up as the sun returns to the sky. Nobody can party like the Moirs, but it turns out that the Virtues are willing to give it a try. She spends the last hour of the party curled up on a lounger with Scott’s arms curled tight around her, just watching the people she loves, sing and dance.

She couldn’t imagine a better wedding, a better husband or a better life.

They make plans. 

Scott gets a job at a hospital in Windsor and they get an apartment there. It’s a short trip across the border to Canton and it means they can live together. He even finds a sledge hockey team to play on.

They spend the rest of their free time at the cottage, but there’s no time for a honeymoon. He’s saving every moment of vacation so he can accompany her to Sochi. The Olympics and how to win gold completely takes over both their minds. He starts following her diet and training regime on solidarity, although she notices that he sometimes sneaks in a chocolate bar when he thinks she isn’t looking.

There’s still talk on the web about their relationship, but without content things settle down for a few weeks. Then someone posts a series of pictures of them at the beach, kissing, laughing and playing in the water. It wouldn’t be too bad, except for their very obvious wedding rings. Marina calls and yells at her in Russian for ten minutes. She might actually be calling to offer congratulations, but everything sounds like anger in Russian. To make matters worse, someone else posts a picture of Ben looking forlorn in a park and the internet decides his heartbroken over losing Tessa. When she calls him to ask him about the picture, he says he claims he was just thinking about what sandwich he was going to have for lunch.

They return to the rink and Marina just stares at them for a few minutes. It makes Tessa distinctly uncomfortable, but Ben just starts giggling. Of course he does, he’s not the one in trouble.

“Did I not give you the gift of a program that makes everyone think you’re in love?” Marina starts, pacing in front of them like a drill sergeant. 

“Yes, Marina,” they answer like guilty school children.

“And did not the judges love you for this. Did they not give you a world championship because of my brilliance?” Tessa wants to argue that maybe their skating contributed, but suspects it’s really not the time. “And did you appreciate this? I think not, because one of you got married and one of you is an idiot.”

Both of them open their mouths to protest, and immediately shut them when she fixes her icy Russian stare on them.

“But, even though you do not deserve it, I will fix this. Why? Because I have love in my heart for you? At this moment very little.” She glares at them until the smile on Ben’s face is gone. “But because I believe you deserve the gold medal, and so I will make the gold medal happen. Ask me how?”

“How, Marina?” they ask in chorus.

“Now, we will sell new story. You are a married woman and you love your husband very much we can all see that, no point in pretending otherwise, you are not that good an actor.”

Tessa wants to be offended but she knows Marina is right.

“So, now Ben will play the heartbroken lover. He will pine for the love that was almost his and yet he was too foolish to keep.”

“But I never wanted her in the first place,” Ben whines.

“Not the point, Benjamin,” Marina barks, looks like she wants to remove his head from his body. “And in the end I will make everyone love you. They will love Tessa for her devotion to Scott and they will love you for your devotion to her. No more discussion. Now we work.”

They watch Marina stomp off before Ben has the courage to speak again. “How am I supposed to look like I’m pining after you?”

“Think about sandwiches, I guess. It worked last time.”

“Good idea,” Ben leaves presumably thinking about sandwiches, as he does look like he’s pining.

Later that day, when they’re alone on the ice, Marina turns to her.

“I do not like it as your coach that you married him, but as your friend, I say, good for you.” She gives Tessa a hug, a genuine hug. 

“Thank you,” she manages. It’s the most surprising hug she’s ever received.

“You made the right choice. You two were meant to be together for a long time.” Marina’s voice starts to crack and she abruptly skates away.

Maybe there are rumours. Maybe there is speculation, but with the Olympics looming she doesn’t have room in her brain for anything other than training and Scott. Frankly, Scott often takes a back seat to training, even though he’s the reason that she can focus on training so much. Now that they live together, he takes on the household and life duties that previously took up so much of her time or were sorely neglected. She trains and when she’s not training, she's thinking about training.

“T,” he calls from the kitchen. “Could you bring your plate into the kitchen.”

“Mmmhmm,” she mumbles back, her eyes glued to the footage of her finnstep. It’s almost there but she needs to figure out how to squeeze a few more points out of it.

She’s lost in the footage when he walks in front of her and takes the plate.

“Could you not. I’m trying to watch that,” she mutters and tries to look around him.

“Are you kidding me?” He stands right in front of the TV and blocks her entire view.

“I said I was going to bring it in,” she says when she notices the plate in his hand.

“That was ten minutes ago. I’m trying to load the dishwasher.” 

“Well, excuse me for being distracted,” she huffs and pushes him out of the way. He stares at her for a minute before storming into the kitchen, where he proceeds to slam cupboard doors and stomp around like a child. She’s just about to tell him to be quiet, when he storms into the bedroom and slams the door behind him.

She’s on her feet, charging after him with the door still bouncing in the frame. She flings open the door to find him sitting on the bed, rubbing his knee.

“Are you seriously mad at me right now?”

He looks up at her and she can see the rage all over his face, but he takes two deep breaths before he finally says, “Am I your husband or your maid?”

She doesn't have an answer for that.

“Because right now, I’m not sure.”

All the fight and anger leaves her body.

“Oh, God,” she flies across the room and sits beside him, puts her arms around his rigid shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t mind, because if this is the only way I can contribute, I will but…” 

“I know. I’m so, so sorry.” She kisses his forehead and his shoulders relax a little. “I’m an asshole.”

“Well, you’re my asshole, so…” He gives in and kisses her. She ignores the video in favour of focusing on the most important thing in her life.

The next night, she makes sure to load the dishwasher and they watch the video together.

She never expected to be at the Olympics without Scott by her side but it’s Ben’s hand she’s holding during the opening ceremonies, while Scott’s back at the hotel with her family. Getting to the Olympics and walking with all of the other Canadian athletes is everything she’s ever dreamed of, but it’s tinged with a melancholy that she never expected.

Another thing that she never expected is that they would become media darlings. But someone at the CBC gets wind of her and Scott’s story. There are interviews and montages of their old programs. The world falls in love with the two partners who couldn’t be separated even by tragedy. Before long all the US networks are calling. It’s so distracting that they start to refuse interviews until after the free dance. They media starts to get desperate for content, when someone catches footage of Scott pushing a piece of hair out of her face, while Ben looks on wistfully. This time he was thinking about how much cheesecake he was going to eat as soon as they were done competing.

She wouldn’t mind if all of it was helping her win a gold medal, but she can tell by Marina’s face that it’s not. They’d come in a close second to the Russians at the GPF and she was starting to get the sense that the fix was in.

Her suspicions were confirmed when they ended up in second place after the rhythm dance, despite having the best dance of their life and a couple of visible mistakes by the Russians.

“What am I going to do?” she asks Scott as she paces the length of his hotel over and over again. He’s towelling his hair dry and looks so delicious that if she wasn’t solely focused on winning, they would be using the room in much better ways. It’s a testament to how attractive she finds him, that she’s even momentarily distracted. 

“Skate your best, T. That’s all you can do.” He grabs her hand on one of her passes and pulls her down beside him. She gives herself thirty seconds to enjoy being near him, to drink in the feel and smell of him. She’s been staying in athletes village and their contact had been severely limited. She misses him so much.

“There has to be something else.”

“Other than skating your best, I don’t think there is anything you can do,” he says when she jumps up again.

“But there has to be.” She starts to pace the room, trying to put the panic in her heart into her feet. “There just has to be.”

“You want to tell me what’s really going on?” he asks as he stands up and stops her pacing by placing his hands on her shoulders one at a time.

“I want to win.”

“And you always do, but this is a little crazy for you.” 

He’s right. They’d decided when they were kids, that all they could do was skate their best and let the chips fall where they may, and it’s a philosophy she’s continued with Ben.

“It’s the Olympics,” she says.

“And?”

“I’ll let Canada down.”

“And?”

“You’re going to get sick again if I don’t win,” she shouts.

And there it is. She hadn’t known it until the words were out, but that’s what it is.

He just grabs her and hugs her for all he’s worth.

“I might get sick again. We both know that’s a possibility,” he whispers in her ear, refusing to let her go. “But whether or not I do has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you win.”

“I… I just can’t…” She can’t hold back the tears that have been threatening and she’s not sure why she was trying. “I can’t let you down.”

“Baby, you could come in last and you wouldn’t let me down.” He kisses every place on her face he can reach. “Just skate. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He holds her until she has to leave, and when she leaves, her heart feels lighter.

She’s never felt more confident, more in the zone, more ready than when she takes centre ice for her Olympic free dance. She smiles at Ben, who looks back at her wistfully, presumably thinking about bacon, picks her toe into her ice and raises her arms over her head as Ben wraps his arms around her waist.

A hush falls over the crowd. 

Just before the music is about to start, the silence is broken by a cry heard through the whole arena.

“That’s my wife!!” Scott shouts, and the music begins.

She skates her best. She skates her best and they come in second. They come in second and the world explodes in protest. She doesn’t care. About any of it. About the second place or the outrage or Ben’s sudden craving for nachos. 

Because Scott’s hand is in hers and that’s all that ever matters.

“Do you think we would have won?” she asks him later that night or perhaps it’s early the next morning. They celebrated at Canada House, because they won an Olympic medal and no matter what the colour that’s worth celebrating. When she finally dragged him away from the well wishers, they had their own celebration in his hotel room. 

“You and me?” he says as his finger tips explore her collarbone and then trail lower. He might not be completely celebrated out. “We would have made it to Vancouver and won gold there.”

“You think?” she’s imagined it before, thinks she might imagine it for the rest of her life.

“Absolutely and then we would have retired and lived off our riches for the rest of our lives.” He laughs and swirls his fingers lower.

“It would have been nice to win gold,” she admits only to him.

“Guess you’ll just have to try for Pyeongchang.”

“You think you could put up with Olympic Tessa for another four more years?” she tugs at his hair as his mouth sets to work on the planes his fingers just left.

“I can put up with anything as long as I’m with you.” He winks at her, before diving in again.

She lets the idea tumble around in her brain for a moment, but before long she can’t think about anything coherently. Only him. Always him.

She makes it to Pyeongchang. 

But this time she’s the one sitting in the stands. 

She considered another Olympic run, but life had other plans in the form of Jonah. Their three year old sits next to her covered head to toe in Canada gear and smiles a smile at her that’s so much his father that she can’t help but think wistfully of the boy she met when she was nine. It’s not just his smile that he got from his father. His boundless energy and his enormous heart are also from him. But his eyes, well they look just like hers.

The almost one year old, Eli, who’s currently sitting patiently in her lap, is much more like her. He’s calm and steady, quiet and thoughtful, but he sure did inherit his father's honker of a nose. Sometimes they joke he’s more nose than baby.

“Where’s Daddy?’ Jonah shouts at the top of his lungs and then almost topples out of his seat. He’s saved by his Grampa Joe’s quick reflexes, honed from spending so many years around wiggly boys.

“He’ll come out with all the rest of the players,” she explains and runs her hands through his messy curls. He needs a trim but she can’t bear the idea of not having the curls anymore. 

“Can’t he just come out now? Eli is getting really impatient,” Jonah explains and Eli screams like a pterodactyl in response as if he’s agreeing with his brother.

“He’s the captain, monkey. It wouldn’t be right if he didn't wait for his team.”

Because Scott’s the one who made it to the Olympics this time. He’s the one who went through all the training and the sacrifice, while she made the money and cleaned the house and loaded the dishwasher. And he’s about to take the ice with Canada’s sledge hockey team. Hopefully, he’ll lead them to a gold medal, but she doesn’t mind if he gets a silver to match the one she has at home.

“Look, he’s coming!” Jonah screams, as the players take the ice. 

It takes her a moment to find him but she finally finds number seventeen. He chose her favourite number, so she’d always be close to him.

As he takes centre ice for the face off, he looks up at the stands, finds her and winks. God damn, if that man isn’t the sexiest thing she’s ever seen. She just knows she’s going to end up pregnant again.

Just as the referee is about to drop the puck, a little voice cries out into the silence.

“THAT’S MY DAD!!!”

And as the whole arena laughs she joins them, because everything is exactly how it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> I'm rookandpawn1 over on twitter. Come by and say hi.
> 
> As always your comments mean the world.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was definitely inspired by Taylor Swift's song Soon You'll Get Better.
> 
> Part two will be up soon.


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